Last night we were in the Ward Mission Leaders home for a meeting with the missionary committee and the full time Elders and Sisters in the Fort Bragg Ward. As the meeting was ending one of the Ward Missionaries told us a story about the fellow soldier he brought to church yesterday. He said he was asked by the Elders Quorum President to pick up a fellow soldier, who was here at Bragg from a National Guard unit in Arizona. He is just here for special training for about 3 weeks and doesn't have a car to get to church. So the ward missionary picked him up and on the way home he invited him to dinner so he didn't have to eat at the Mess Hall. During dinner the conversation some how turned to the name of an inactive neighbor and the soldier said "do you mean ... so and so". Yes said the ward missionary. "Well I used to be his Bishop back when we were in such and such a unit and I got him active at that time" etc etc. They decided that while here the soldier will go visit the inactive brother. WOW After the ward missionary told the story I said "The Lords work is amazing. Do you want to hear the rest of that story??" So I told them the story really begins when we first arrived here. We tried several times to get in touch with any chaplains. Finally we met one LDS chaplain and asked him to help us get permission to post our information for LDS Soldiers needing help or a list of meeting times and address to our ward building. We could already do things with ward members but we wanted to have our names available for incoming soldiers etc. He was pretty busy by the time we met him, getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan. We kept waiting. Finally the day before he left he got permission for us to meet with one of the head Chaplains on base. This chaplain is not LDS but was very nice to us. We gave him our information and asked if it could be posted somewhere so other chaplains would know about LDS help if soldiers needed it. He later sent an email, more than once, reminding many chaplains about our information. So we knew our information was out there. Well fast forward 3 months. We were out visiting one day, just a few days before General Conference, when I heard the cell phone ring but didn't answer it in time. We pulled over a few minutes later and I returned the call. It was from a Chaplain who is here at Bragg for just 3 weeks from Arizona, who wanted LDS information for his men. I assumed he was LDS but as the conversation got going I found he was not, but did want LDS information for some of his men. This chaplain got our information from the Chaplain of the 3 month ago experience. So I told him what he needed to know and told him to have his soldiers call us if they needed anything. Well one soldier called, the one our ward missionary picked up. Since we don't live on base I called the ward mission leader to ask if he could arrange a ride for this soldier. He called the Elders Quorum Pres who called the ward missionary who gave the soldier a ride, the one who was the Bishop who activated the neighbor. Sounds to me like the Lord is trying to get back in touch with our inactive member. And by the way we have been talking to his wife, hoping to get in for an FHE. Tender mercies and miracles?? Yes they still happen !!
